Class Year and Athlete Status: Association with Depression, Anxiety, Coping, and Stress During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The purpose of the current study was to examine the association between class year and athlete status with depression, anxiety, stress, and coping in the context of a national pandemic. Studies on college students and college student-athletes during a national pandemic is a topic that is yet to be thoroughly studied. The current study was completely online and the participants were freshmen and senior undergraduate college students and student-athletes. This will be a survey research with non-manipulated independent variables. Participants completed the DASS-21 and the Brief COPE, which measured depression, anxiety, stress, and coping. It was hypothesized that student-athletes would have better coping skills and thus experience less depression and anxiety. It was also hypothesized that seniors will have better coping and thus less depression and anxiety symptoms than freshmen. The data for this research will be analyzed by using a 2x2 two-way factorial ANOVA. There were no significant differences between the scores from athletes and non-athletes and freshmen and seniors. Therefore, regardless of class year and athlete status, college students reported similar levels of depression, stress, and anxiety